Off-line front-end safety control system for the SPES project at the LNL

Abstract

The off-line front-end apparatus of the Selective Production of Exotic Species (SPES) project, developed at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (LNL) in Italy, involves a number of subsystems and procedures that are potentially dangerous for both human operators and equipments. Among the most potentially dangerous systems are: the high voltage power supply, the ion source complex power supplies, the target chamber handling mechanisms and the laser source. In order to prevent possible injuries to the operators and damages to the equipments, a safety interlock system and logic monitoring have been developed, tested and are now in operation. The solution is based on Schneider Electrics Preventa family safety modules with capability to control the power supplied to critical subsystems in conjunction with safety detectors for critical variable monitoring. Moreover, a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC),model BMXP342020 from the Schneider Electrics Modicon M340 family, is used to monitor the status of the system as well as to control the sequence of preestablished operations. With the aim to have a user friendly system, a Human Machine Interface (HMI) have been developed using a touch screen model XBTGT5330 from the Schneider Electrics Magelis family, driven by the PLC.